'That's when you realise 'Umm… maybe I shouldn't give my advice'': Virat Kohli's tough transition from captain to player
Virat Kohli has admitted that for him, the transformation of going back to being a player from the captain of the Indian team was a tough nut to crack.
Virat Kohli has admitted that for him, the transformation of going back to being a player from the captain of the Indian team was a tough nut to crack. Kohli stepped down as India's T20I captain after the T20 World Cup 2021 and in Tests from January of 2022 (in between, he was removed as the team's ODI captain) bringing an end to the reign of one of the most successful Indian skippers of all time. Nonetheless, as Kohli went back to being just a player for the second time in his career, the star India batter revealed that although he doesn't miss it as much, there have been instances where his captaincy instincts kick in by default. Kohli explains that the process – albeit not an arduous one – has taken him time get used to and insisted that he has 'let go' any captaincy duties that he may have had inside of him once he walked away from the post.
"Of course, there is. I would be lying if I say it's not. Because you go into a position of being responsible for everything that's going on around you and to not be in that position, takes a bit of time to process it, understand it and let that become normal. It's not so much letting go because once you have decided that you don't want to do it, you've already let go of it in a sense but it's the moments where the game is in the balance and that's when you feel like 'Umm, we should… Ah! And that's when you realise that no, maybe I should not give me advice right now because the plan seems to be already made and it's clear," Kohli said on the RCB podcast.
"These are the kind of things that happen when you understand that ok hold on, you need to kind of hold yourself back. So these are the only things I am talking about in those crunch moments because you've been always involved in taking decision on those moments. It naturally kicks in again that 'do I need to take that decision?' and then you realise that 'oh, it's working well."
Shortly after Kohli announced his decision to relinquish India's T20I captaincy, he followed suit in the IPL too. As the Royal Challengers Bangalore were facing Chennai Super Kings in the first match of the second-half of IPL 2021, RCB dropped a bomb on their Twitter, a video where Kohli announced that he was stepping down as the its captain. A few months later, as RCB appointed Faf du Plessis as their captain, Kohli welcomed the decision with a heartwarming message for the former South Africa captain, but his captaincy instincts have followed him here as well.
"There have been so many instances as well when I would run to Faf and tell him 'You know what? I strongly feel we should do this'. And he's been happy enough to take it and clear enough to tell me he doesn't want to do that at that point of time. It's been very respectful," Kohli said candidly.
